rust

I'm really not sure that anyone is hanging on this information, but...

I am waiting for the monograph to continue with the magic part of my set-

ting, so this is good news for me.

Ah, thank you - so it is a kind of online fantasy chess with unusually ugly

pieces ... >:->

When you download and open it, you get a game table that looks like this,

plus lots and lots of .png images like the two examples.

I have not yet found out what exactly to do with this, but I would hesitate

to call it a mapping software in the usual sense.

I'll have to order one of the main books online because my shops around here don't sell them.

If you do not see it as a problem that BRP is somewhat more on the "simula-

tionist" side than on the "gamist" side of roleplaying games (e.g. combat is

very deadly, PCs are rarely more powerful than NPCs, etc.), I really would re-

commend to take a close look at it - especially since there is only one book

you need, and this one is full of most interesting and useful ideas and opti-

ons.

Thank you very much.

As for alchemy, I wrote some rules for classic Renaissance alchemy that are in the GM Resources section of the downloads that you might find useful.

I know, very good rules, which I have already sto ... ah, borrowed ...

Thank you, I have included it in my (frighteningly growing) reading list.

Thank you very much.

I think I will also be able to use a couple of basic ideas from Call of Cthulhu,

especially the Necronomicon (the German RPG supplement, a book about the

background of mythos magic - I have no idea whether there is an English

version of this, too).

My "role model" for scholarly mages is John Dee, a famous scientist of his age

as well as an alchemist and a "magician", for whom magic was just a different

kind of science.

I am currently working on the magic system for the divine and scholarly

magic of my Malita renaissance setting, and it seems that I have chosen

a somewhat unusual approach:

- each spell requires some ritual or ceremony and several items specific to

that spell (bell, book and candle ...),

- most magic is rather weak and unimpressive, truly powerful magic requires

a very long preparation time and very unusual items (for example a bone of

St Skeleton ...),

- the spellcaster needs a certain Allegiance score - amount as yet undeter-

mined, but probably 50 - to be attuned to his deity / philosophy well enough

to be able to cast any spells at all,

- the spellcaster has to succeed with a Knowledge skill roll (theology for di-

vine spellcasters, to determine how to fit the magic into their religion's dog-

ma, and a similar philosophy roll for the scholars),

- there is "dark" (destructive, etc.) and "light" (healing, etc.) magic, and a

magic user has to choose a side, but the intention of the magic use (smite

those unbelievers ...) can enable a spellcaster to use a spell of the "other"

type,

- an obvious misuse (smite that grumpy patriarch of the own church...) re-

sults in the permanent loss of all spellcasting ability,

- all magic only creates events that could just as well occur naturally (e.g.

an earthquake), be based upon psychology (e.g. an illusion or a mental ill-

ness) or otherwise have naturals causes (it was the mushroom dish, not a

spell ...).

Well, I am not really surprised ...

It seems that I am in the happy situation that others write the really difficult

parts of my Malita setting for me.

Being a science fiction guy, I do not know much about ships and magic in BRP,

but Ken Spencer is so kind to publish his pirates supplement just in time, and

Byron Alexander helps out with the equally perfectly timed publication of a

witchcraft monograph - thank you both very much indeed. :thumb:

While two is very good luck, three would be a miracle - nevertheless, there is

a third and last part of the material I need and do not feel competent enough

to write myself, the scholarly magic of the renaissance: Bell, Book and Candle.

Is there any hope that someone will publish something of this kind in the not

so far future ? - just asking ...

I somehow missed it before and just now discovered those magical words in

your post: Renaissance, dying dark-age tradition.

This looks very much like what I am currently working on for my Malita set-

ting, a local pagan tradition of the island population that centers around

one of the ancient temple ruins, is able to work comparatively weak magic,

and is a pain in the neck for the knightly order, because they cannot tole-

rate such heathen practices, but also must not alienate the locals.

I think I will stop working on that and take a look at your monograph, it could

well save me a lot of time ... :thumb:

Thank you very much. :)

Since the knights will indeed establish the island's first hospital ever, and

since this is very likely to become their most important achievement from

the point of view of the islanders, I will use Castelcerusco.

Have you seen A Chinese Ghost Story?

I love that one. If you manage to get both the feeling of the Outlaws

of the Water Margin and the Chinese Ghost Story across, you definitely

have one more customer.

I think we can find a good name for you cities when you can describe the peculiarities of your order, rust. What is in their coat of arms? Who is their Patron Saint? What is their nickname? If you can answer these questions, we can find a much better-sounding name!

Ah, I see - and thank you very much for your help.

I want to stay rather close to the historical role model, so the coat of arms

of the order would be a Maltese Cross, and the patron saint would be Saint

John. I have no idea concerning a nickname, the only other name that comes

to my mind is the earlier name of the order, Knights Hospitaller.

Edit.:

Oh, and I forgot to mention that it is a port city, the "architect's plan" looks

like this:

Thank you very much indeed.

Edit.:

I really like Mastio dell'Ordine, it sounds good, and the commonly used shortened

city name Mastio does so, too.

For my Malita setting I need a name for the future new capital of the island,

and I do not want to use the real Malta's Valetta, because the grand mas-

ter that city is named for will probably not exist in my alternate timeline.

I thought about using the Italian translation of City of the Order or City of

Knights, and my translation program delivered:

City of the Order = Città dell'Ordine (short name of the city: Ordine)

City of Knights = Città dei Cavalieri (short name of the city: Cavalieri)

However, my Italian is almost nonexistent, so I have no idea whether these

translations are correct and make sense.

Perhaps one of the Italian members of the community could help me ?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So what is Parry used for??????? Only as an optional skill (p198?) Help!

I ran into the same problem only a couple of days ago and decided to treat

Parry as a subskill of the weapon or shield skill in question, with the same

value as that skill (e.g. Rapier 55 % = Rapier Parry 55 %).

However, I am not sure whether this is according to the rules, so I am also

interested in the answer to this question.

Well, and that's it for now. :cool:

The framework of the setting is almost finished (general background, rules,

major NPCs, first maps ...), and I now have about 25 pages of material.

The next step will be to read through all the reference material, which will

not happen before we go on vacation (finding out whether the mountains

of Montenegro really are black ...), and afterwards to adapt the framework

to my newly gained knowledge about the historical background.

Finally there is the "soft" part of the setting (what people call "fluff") to

write, together with one or two introductory adventures.

Since I do not expect any of this to happen in the near future, this thread

will now go to sleep for a while.

Thank you for following this first design phase of the setting, and if you ha-

ve any comment or idea, just post it here and wake up the thread.

For those of you who use Runequest Empires, this is a first attempt at

the stats for Malita:

Realm Statistics

Cultural Background: Maritime

Government: Theocracy

Realm Characteristics

Military (Mil) 20

Law (Law) 16

Size (Siz) 3

Communication (Com) 17

Religion (Rel) 17

Wealth (Wth) 10

Realm Capabilities

Commerce 38

Dogma 43

Espionage 25

Government 48

Warfare 62

Culture 37

Technology 36

Diplomacy 58

Loyalty (Spain) 33

Loyalty (Papal State) 33

Attitude

Temperament: Defensive

Stance: Open

The SIZ is too high, but 3 is the lowest value allowed by the system, so I

decided to count the members of the order at its priories all over Europe as

inhabitants, too, and leave it at 3.

Otherwise, I think the stats are acceptable, although I will probably do some

fine tuning.

The finances of the order proved to be a minor nightmare, because I had to

convert between and juggle with the wealth points of Runequest Empires,

the Silver Pieces of Runequest, the other Silver Pieces used for the price list

I "borrowed" from 7th Sea, and the Scudi I had started the setting with.

Currently the conversion looks like this:

1 Wealth Point = 1.000 RQ-Silver Pieces = 150.000 Scudi

Alas and alack I'm afraid you don't get off that easy.

Yes, I know, I am slowly coming to terms with historical reality ... :ohwell:

While I can "move" a bit towards galeass / early frigate and chebec, I am

still deep within "galley territory", for example the Capitana naval combat

system mentioned above has not a single "non-galley" among its ship types.

It seems my problem came from a confusion of "Atlantic" ship types and "Me-

diterranean" ship types of the period, but after reading more on the subject

I have now to accept that using "Atlantic" ships in the Mediterranean instead

of galleys would seriously damage the "period flavour" of the setting.

So, yes, it will be galleys.

Apart from the rules for mass combat mentioned above, the background of

this setting will also require some rules for the development of Malita island.

The ability of the order to wage war, the defensive strength of its island ba-

se, the options for the missions of the player characters and much more will

depend upon the island's economy and the order's finances.

For this part of the setting I intend to use the rules from Mongoose's Rune-

quest Empires, which seem to fit almost perfectly well.

They describe a state almost like a character, with a series of stats and ca-

pabilities that enable it to interact with other states and to develop over ti-

me, and it also has rules for governing a fief, and even for building stuff like

town halls, palaces, churches and fortifications.

A first look at the stats and capabilities of Malita shows that this island is

almost a "basket case", almost unable to finance itself, and completely un-

able to serve as an economic base for the order.

This means that the order will have to empty its "war chest" and to rely on

its various national priories to keep going and to develop the island up to a

point where it produces more money for the order than the order has to

spend to keep and develop it - even a few major loans may be necessary to

build fortifications, buy ships and thelike.

I am not yet sure how to "translate" this background situation into the ad-

ventures of the player characters, except that their superiors will answer a

lot of their proposals with "Not enough silver in our coffers ...".

Apart from that, many thanks to Terry Whisenant for the BRP character crea-

tion Excel sheet in the download section !

With the dozens of NPCs this setting will require, the sheet really helps to stat

them out without going mad after the first dozen or so.

The job title of concoctioner is a little cumbersome, but probably fun to say after a few too many beers. The potential confusion with confectioner is a point in it's favour though.

Elixirian just sounds a little to weird :-)

Well, you could use "Master of ..." as a job title - in my view "Master of Con-

coctions and Elixirs" (M.Co.El.) does not sound too bad.

And with some more academic effort he could even become a Dr.Co.El. ...

Seriously, for a fantastic art in a fantastic setting you could well use some

elaborate fantastic title instead of a more pedestrian job description.

A "Scholarly Master of the Hidden Arts" or something like that would seem

quite appropriate to me.

Two words that come to my mind are "Concoctions" and "Elixirs".

For this setting I will most probably need some mass combat rules for the

major land and sea battles between the order and its allies and their va-

rious opponents.

A search on the Internet led me to two likely candidates for mass combat

rules, both covering the right period and both "quick and simple" enough to

keep the "big battle" in the background while using the BRP rules for the

characters' activities during the battle.

The land battle rules are "A Glorious Victory":

The Armchair General - Renaissance Wargame Rules

The sea battle rules are "Capitana":

http://www.rulesdepot.net/page6.html

I have to admit that it could have influenced my choice that both systems

are free ...

However, if someone knows a system that might work even better (e.g. a

mass combat system for BRP, if such a thing exists), please let me know

- Thank You.